She'll be back

            So I saw Lucy today, and strangely, I don’t regret it.  

            Not because the movie was a masterpiece, which it wasn’t—in addition to the poorly-explained pseudoscience that makes up the movie’s plot, it’s hampered by really uncomfortable orientalist undertone, awful side characters, and some really shaky performances.  Also, when Lucy gets above 80% brain-power level, she turns into the black goo from Prometheus and the already nonsensical plot completely shits itself.  And yet, my WhiteHouse.gov petition to ban black goo from movies has zero signatures.  Way to go, America.

            No, the reason I don’t regret it is the best thing in the movie, and that’s Scarlett Johansson.  Previously most famous for romantic comedies, Johansson began her transformation into what has crystalized within Lucy with her role as Black Widow in the Marvel movies.  But in Lucy, Johansson’s greatest strength is revealed: she is the new Schwarzenegger.

            I’m serious.  The only parts of Lucy that I really liked were the parts where Johansson makes everyone crap themselves by completely shattering their expectations while making it clear that she gives so few shits about what they think that she’s taking shits.  She is pulling the shit out of their butts only to callously toss it aside.  That’s how few shits she gives.  Schwarzenegger’s best performances (save for his jaw-dropping transformation into a complex, believable average father in Jingle All the Way,) like in Terminator 2: Judgement Day were built on his calm, detached demeanor while he just dished out pain and one-liners, but a lot of that was conveyed through his sheer physical bulk.  Johansson doesn’t have that advantage, but she can still look at you and instantly convince you that she is about to punch you in the face.  Or, in the case of Lucy, make you float in the air, or pass out, or shove you through a wall, or stab you in the hands and talk to you about pain.

            Granted, this effect is somewhat undermined by Lucy’s script, which has her make a lot of mistakes that somebody who is so badass they are literally godlike probably wouldn’t make.  But the fantastic performance still stands.  Scarlett Johansson needs to be in more movies where she calmly and robotically destroys people.  I want to see her play more roles where a close friend or family member is captured and the only way she can save them is by tearing ninjas limb-from-limb while looking bored.  Maybe every once in a while she could make a terrible joke, like saying “nice to meat you” as she kicks a ninja into a meat grinder, or “he should’ve ducked” after she kicks a ninja into a pond full of man-eating ducks.  In fact, I may not even need a coherent movie.  If somebody were to just string together scenes of her kicking ninjas into stuff I would probably be good.